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Barren

A fter more than a day of waiting, Claira was finally asleep again. But as I approached her subconscious mind, a sense of foreboding shadowed me.

Something was off. She was asleep, yet this attempt to connect with her dream felt different from any before.

The feel, the shape, the sense of her mind. All of it had changed.

She had changed.

Was this because of our last meeting? Or had something happened in the Undersea to change her?

I pressed on, searching for a way into her mind, until finally, the wall of her consciousness yielded and let me in.

Salt water .

I closed my eyes as soon as it enveloped me.

Alhey . I’d feared she would have a dream that would take me underwater with her. But was she really here?

My tail beat underneath me—a welcomed relief—but I couldn’t sense her, couldn’t feel the familiar hum of my heart singing, resonating with hers.

Even so, I kept my eyes firmly closed. I wasn’t willing to risk seeing the form she might take if she were to appear. Dreams emerged from the deepest parts of our minds, and I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the same image of her I’d glimpsed in her mind once before—the one that had driven me to tighten my hand around her neck.

That was a mistake I would never repeat.

The salt water churned around me, the current intensifying as I sensed a presence gliding nearer.

“Claira?” I called out gruffly, but I already knew that whoever it was, their mind was unfamiliar to me.

No response.

It didn’t make sense. I’d followed my instincts straight to Claira’s subconscious, but now that I was inside it, there was no trace of her.

Whose dream was this? And how were they connected to Claira?

Unsettling tension built within me, a sense of danger looming in the water. I reached out with my mind, bracing for what I might encounter.

LEAVE. Want GONE. The voice slammed into my mind.

The thoughts and emotions that flooded into me right after were desperate—images of the ocean floor, an unrelenting hunger, and overwhelming loneliness.

But there was also relief. The satisfaction of finally breaking free.

I was no stranger to finding conflicting emotions in the minds of others, but as I tried to sift through them, the voice crashed into my mind once again, even louder than before.

You GONE. LEAVE.

This wasn’t Claira’s dream. And to whoever’s dream this was, I was an intruder. The flow of water shifted over my shoulders; I was about to be attacked from behind.

My eyes snapped open, adrenaline coursing through me, spurring me into motion. Without hesitation, I spun, pivoting to face the threat. Jaws, wide and lined with teeth, opened up before me, and because this was their dream, nothing I could do would be fast enough to avoid them. Those jaws were going to close in on me.

And then, in a split second, they did—clamping down on my face.

My body convulsed as the pain jolted me out of the dream, tossing me back to my reality. I awoke with a roar, still feeling the intense sting of teeth slicing through the sides of my neck.

It had been a shark, but I was uncertain of what kind. How had I reached out to my mate and ended up inside an unknown shark’s mind instead?

What… had I done wrong?

I sat there, hunched over my trident, too shocked to do anything other than grit my teeth against the searing memory of pain.

Perhaps if I hadn’t known what it was like to have my flesh ripped and torn, my mind wouldn’t have made the dream feel so real.

I raised my hand to my face, half-expecting blood to trickle down my palm. But there was no blood or evidence of salt water. There was only sweat from the effort I’d exerted during the somnial drift.

Had Claira done this? After our last meeting, had she shut me out of her dreams entirely?

… No, she couldn’t have. She wouldn’t.

It had to be my fault—my limited knowledge of somnial drifting and my lack of understanding of my trident’s full power. Yes, that had to be it. I’d figure out what I’d done wrong, and then I would correct it.

Claira was still safe, her mind intact.

She had to be.

I was subtly aware that my hand was shaking as I caught the flash of my phone screen lighting up on the floor beside me. I reached for it without thinking, bringing the phone up to my ear.

“Barren?” Kai chirped the moment the call connected.

There was an expectant silence over the line, but my throat refused to budge.

“You there, dude?” The bright energy in his voice was a sharp contrast to the darkness of my bedroom and the cold weight of the trident lying across my lap.

I swallowed hard, barely grunting in response. “Mmh.”

Even the way he sucked in a breath sounded excited. “That’s great! Lee—Barren picked up.” His voice was muffled as if he’d turned away from the phone. “See, I told you he would.”

While he spoke, I pushed the trident off my lap and got to my feet, stumbling my way out of my bedroom and into the kitchen.

Kai’s voice grew louder again, bubbling with urgency. “So, here’s the thing. We’ve got kind of a… situation over here. It’s pretty interesting, actually.” He took a quick breath before blurting, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but we actually need two more plane tickets.”

“Mmh?” I was only half-listening. I put the call through the speaker and set the phone on the counter so I could throw back a glass of water.

“Yeah—so, do you remember that dude from the hotel? The one Laverne really liked?”

I choked down another glass of water as I thought about the man in question. The king of the Southern Ocean. He had thought he’d infiltrated my kingdom’s hotel unnoticed, but although I’d never met him officially, his thoughts had given his identity away before I’d even seen his face.

Thankfully, Kai didn’t wait for an answer before continuing, “Did you know he’s actually a king? Like, whoa , right? He was just pretending to work there.”

“Mmh. He’s harmless,” I muttered after swallowing the last of the water. To be honest, he hadn’t acted like much of a king, so I hadn’t given him much thought. He’d been too afraid of being found out to cross into the Atlantic’s territory, and as long as I kept tabs on his location while Claira was at the hotel, I’d seen no danger in him.

The truth was that everyone had their own dark, unsettling thoughts and schemes. As long as they didn’t act on them, I often chose to ignore the insights I gained from delving into their minds.

On the other end of the line, Kai’s voice cracked with a nervous-sounding laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say he’s harmless. He took Laverne’s coat from her without asking, which basically means they’re married now,” he said with a sniffle. “Did you know that she’s actually a selkie?”

So, Laverne had told him. I was glad to hear she’d finally trusted him with the truth. “Mmh. Had a feeling she might be.”

Instead of being upset that I hadn’t shared Laverne’s secret with him earlier, Kai jumped right into talking more about selkies. “Isn’t it amazing? Like, dude! I’ve read all about them, but I had no idea selkies were actually still around.”

His voice became a background hum as my thoughts drifted. I stared blankly at the wall, barely registering his excitement, my overwhelming exhaustion pulling at me.

“…extra plane tickets?” His voice cut through the fog. “And remind me again, what was that thing you wanted me to do with the trident? Tell the airport that it’s a moo-vee?”

The trident? They’d actually found it?

“A movie prop,” I said, absently running my hand over my eyes, trying not to collapse into the sink. It felt like it had been days since I’d had decent rest or a proper meal. Maybe it had. But there Kai, Leander, and Laverne were, working as hard as I was, if not harder.

My tongue struggled to cooperate as I went over the details. “I’ll arrange for a crate and the paperwork to be sent to the airport. Make sure my contact is gone before packing the trident inside it. Don’t—don’t let anyone see it.”

Even though there were some humans I trusted enough to work with, we couldn’t risk Javalynn finding out about what they were bringing back to the island.

Luckily, she was likely still preoccupied with searching for me. This was one time where being the tainted one had a benefit. I doubted anyone in our kingdom truly wanted to find me, regardless of Javalynn’s commands.

“It’s kind of... big, but yeah, okay. I’ll make sure no one sees it. Thanks, man.”

After a pause, Kai added nervously, “I should probably keep King Archernar as far away from it as possible, too, right? I’m really not sure about taking him with us, but you know how Laverne gets.”

“I do.” But if she really thought of him as her husband, I couldn’t imagine her taking her eyes off of him long enough for him to cause trouble. “It’ll be fine,” I muttered, forcing myself to sound calm.

He didn’t need to know about my failure to connect with Claira or how something about her mind had changed.

“I sure hope so,” Kai said with a light laugh. “All right, man, thanks for your help. Oh! By the way, before I forget, Lee and I decided earlier that the three of us are brothers. Like, we’re a real family now, you know?”

There was a moment of silence as I stared at the water dripping down the polished drain of my kitchen sink.

I could hear Kai’s smile in the next words that came over the phone. “So, we’ll see you soon, brother! Don’t worry. We’ll get her back.”

“M-mmh,” I stammered, my chest pounding as I picked my phone off the countertop.

Family . I’d had a family once—or at least the illusion of one. But maybe, with Claira, Kai, and Leander, we could build something real.

“Kai,” I called out into the phone, hoping he would hear it before he hung up. I felt an urgent need to let him know that I’d spoken to Claira, even if she’d only thought of it as a dream. But what to say, what not to say—I was no good at communicating.

His voice came through, filled with curiosity. “Yeah, man? What’s up?”

Sweat dripped down my forehead as I struggled for the words to explain it. “I’ve talked to her.”

“You’ve… talked to Claira?” The awe in his voice was unmistakable.

Another voice came through the phone, deep and authoritative—Leander’s. “Barren saw her?” I expected him to yank the phone away from Kai, but he didn’t. I could still hear Kai’s shaky breathing on the other end.

“In a dream. Her dream, thanks to my father’s old trident.” My trident.

The phone went quiet, their breathing barely audible.

Then came Kai’s trembling voice. “Is she okay?”

Leander came through even louder. “Her dream? Fuck, Barren. How is she? That dark spawn fucker better not have touched her.”

“She’s… sad.” It wasn’t the right thing to say, but I didn’t know how else to put it. Despite all I’d drank down, my throat felt completely dry. “She misses us.”

Neither of them said a word, but I could feel the weight of their emotions, even through the phone.

After a heavy silence, Kai was the first to speak. “I promise we’ll find a way to bring her back to us.”

“Mmh,” I forced out. Leaving the sink, I stumbled back into my bedroom just in time for my knees to give way, sending me crumpling down to the floor at the end of my bed with a barely stifled grunt.

I wanted to believe him, just as I wanted to believe I was strong enough to reach Claira again.

But I wasn’t even strong enough to hold myself together.

I almost thought the call had ended when Kai’s voice came through again. “Hey, big guy… What about you? Are you doing okay?”

“No,” I breathed out, my chest starting to heave.

I wasn’t okay. I was weak, depleted, terrified.

My abilities had somehow not been good enough to reach her this time, and the realization that I might have already used up my one chance to communicate with her was starting to sink in.

I expected Kai to offer more reassurance, telling me not to worry and promising that we would rescue her. I would have to nod and accept it, but he didn’t know all that I knew. Neither of them did.

They didn’t know why Claira had distanced herself from us in the first place or why she was continuing to push away from us now.

They didn’t realize that she didn’t need saving. She needed time to come to terms with herself, to discover and embrace who she was before she could fully open her heart to us again.

But instead of more empty vows, Kai surprised me with something unexpected. “I’m sorry we left you there all alone,” he said softly. “We’ll be back soon, okay? As soon as we can. Just hold on until then.”

“Yeah, hold tight, Barren,” Leander added. Then, after a pause, “You didn’t fucking stab yourself to get into her dream, did you?”

“No.” But I would have done it if I had to.

“Good. I didn’t think you would, but I’m glad you didn’t,” he said. “Take a break, man. You sound fucking exhausted. Once we get there, we’ll handle this together.”

I nodded into the phone, holding it up to my ear. “I’ll wait for you, then.”

It was a strange sensation, having them show concern for me. A family . A small voice inside me tried to tell me that it wasn’t real. But my heart, scarred as it was from years with Lynn, knew that this was genuine.

When the line went silent, I sat on the floor, staring into the darkness. My brain ran through a mental checklist of all the things I needed to do: make phone calls and arrange for new passports and flights that wouldn’t catch Javalynn’s attention. They were tasks that I was used to. Nothing out of the ordinary. But each one seemed too daunting to even begin.

Leander was right. It was no surprise I couldn’t connect with Claira’s dream when my body was exhausted and my mind was barely functioning.

I started a new list. First, food. Then, I would make the necessary calls to my contacts before getting some rest.

After that, while waiting for Kai and Leander to return, I would pick up my trident and figure out where I’d gone wrong. Then I’d try again.